Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
International Monetary Fund Hungry for Cash - Interview with Pepe Escobar
As more and more countries are turning to the International Monetary Fund for help, it in turn is reaching out for support from some of the world's emerging financial power players.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde's preparing to head off to China on Tuesday, and is currently in Moscow for talks with the Kremlin. 'Asia Times' correspondent Pepe Escobar thinks it's a sign of the IMF's growing desperation that its head is asking emerging economic powers for help, but he says the countries will want something in return for their cash.
Also see POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH
http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2011/11/europe-got-no-cash-to-save-italy.html
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Full Text of Press Statement by Comrade Kiran and Badal
Democracy and Class Struggle thanks Next Front Nepal for making this document available in English.
Respected media persons,
It is known to all that an agreement paper entitled “An agreement reached among the political parties on the issues including peace process” and jointly signed by the chairman of the UCPN (Maoist), chairman of CPN (UML), president of the Nepali Congress and leaders from United Democratic Madheshi Front was brought to public through media. The said agreement has seriously hurt at the credence and prestige of the great people’s war waged by the Maoists for ten years, the expectations, aspirations and dreams of the martyrs, disappeared and injured fighters and the outstanding records of devotion, heroism and sacrifice by the PLA and the entire freedom-loving masses as well. Although efforts have been made to beautify this agreement as a historical agreement that initiates a new era but in essence it has become a symbol of capitulation and a serious betray towards nation and the people. We strongly oppose this kind of agreement.
1.In the beginning of the agreement, it has been stated that “the political process including constitution writing needs to be pushed forward by bringing the peace process to a logical end”. The peace process must have been made an integral, interrelated and unified part of army integration and constitution writing. We firmly oppose for not making it so.
2.The sub-point (c) of the first point of the said agreement states that “the Maoist combatants must individually fulfil the criteria of security forces in which they are to be integrated”. Likewise, the sub-point (f) of the same point states that the entire weapons stored in the cantonments will come under the control of the Nepal Government after the army integration process starts. These kinds of expressions in the agreement paper clearly show that the army integration is being carried out in an individual basis, not in groups, and not armed but in an unarmed way. The Standing Committee (SC) and Central Committee (CC) decisions clearly state that the PLA integration will take place in groups and also armed in accordance with the special criteria of army integration. Likewise, in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the Interim Constitution (IC), it has been clearly mentioned that the PLA integration will be carried out as to provide them the role of combatants. However, it is clear that the said agreement is against the CPA and IC and also the SC and CC decisions as well. When PLA comes under the jurisdiction of the state, individual criteria and surrendering of arms to the state is utterly wrong, we fully oppose it. Our stand that the PLA integration must be in groups and armed continues.
3.In sub-point (b) of the same point of the agreement it has been stated that the Maoist combatants will be given the responsibility of “development and construction, forest security guard, industrial security guard and catastrophe management”. It goes against the decisions of our SC and CC meetings and the concept of army integration as well. PLA’s role can never be in the form of a forest guard and watchman. The CC and SC decisions, which state that the new force formed after the integration of PLA will have the responsibility of border security force as a regular combatant army, is correct and we firmly stand by this decision.
We reject the 7-pt deal’ -11 Comanders of Chulachuli Division
From : Telegraph Nepal
A press meet was organized in Damak of Jhapa district, Saturday November 5, 2011 by eleven commanders of the Peoples’ Liberation Army to summarily reject the so-called 7-Point Historic Peace Deal signed by Nepal’s major parties last Tuesday.The Peace deal was signed between parties to conclude the peace process, November 1, 2011.The Commanders belonged to the First Division Headquarters of the Peoples’ Liberation Army located in Chulachuli of Ilam and from three other satellite cantonments.
Battalion Commanders Bhimraj Rai, Ratna Kumar Jagabu, Dev Raj Limbu and Tika Nembang and Deputy Commanders Om Bahadur Gurung, Singh Raj Limbu and Ratna Kumar Century and Company Commanders Ram Kumar Khati and Bikash Rai had jointly organized the press meet to express their dissatisfaction over the deal.
“This agreement is an insult and aims to totally disarm the Peoples’ Liberation Army,” said deputy commander Baburam Rai of Chulachuli Brigade, “We will not accept the integration as stipulated in the deal”.
“This agreement is a farce. We will not accept the job to guard the forest. This agreement has ignored the party decision,” said Dev Raj Limbu.
“We would like to tell that not all of us are happy as is being projected by the media,” he also claimed.
See also:
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2011/11/7-point-pact-against-pla.html
Nepal's Army Integration Special Committee Attending Training Programme of the US Army and Navy Academy in California "aimed to help formation of national security policy"!!!
The timetable for the regrouping of the Maoist combatants is likely to fall behind schedule with majority of the members of the Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) remaining out of the country at the moment.
Five of the AISC members are now in the United States – four of them attending a training programme organised by the US Army.
A meeting of the committee scheduled to take place on Sunday had to be cancelled due to the absence of the members. The AISC secretariat notified about the postponement of the meeting citing lack of quorum.
The meeting was to take up the modality of the rehabilitation package prepared by secretariat.
Four AISC members - UML general secretary Ishwor Pokharel, Nepali Congress leader Ram Sharan Mahat, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Republican) chairman and communication minister J.P Gupta and MJF-Loktantrik’s Jintendra Dev are in the US for more than a week now to attend a training programme organised by the Army and Navy academy in California.
Pokharel’s personal assistant Dipendra Shrestha told Nepalnews that the leaders went to the US at the invitation of US government for the civil-army relationship training “aimed to help in the formation of new national security policy of Nepal”.
Another AISC member, Minendra Rijal, left for US on Saturday, accompanying Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The Dahal-led delegation will meet United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon in New York to seek support for the development of Lumbini as an international Buddhist hub. nepalnews.com\
Also look at Peter Tobin Report on US/Nepal Army relationship:
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2011/06/balance-of-military-forces-in-nepal-in.html
A Call from the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari - Bury the 1% with the 99%
A wave of rage and unrest is seen worldwide. The youth are out on the streets – protesting, resisting, hitting back. They are supported and joined by people from a wide spectrum. Dictators, who squeeze out the life breath of freedom; rulers, who load all the hardship of the crisis on the people’s backs; billionaire sharks, who speculate and profit on hunger and homelessness; politicians, who plunder public funds – the whole lot is targeted. This is wonderful!
In some Arab countries the people have achieved an initial victory by ending dictatorial regimes. In Europe, powerful outbursts of popular fury have forced the rulers to tread slow on their plans to choke the people with cuts in public spending. And in the midst of this, mass protest has broken out all over the USA, the centre of the world imperialist system. The slogans raised by the Occupy movements, initiated by Occupy Wall Street, capture the anti-capitalist sentiments and desire for change of the broad masses everywhere. Occupations replicate the world over and the call resonates with ever greater force.
That’s right, the 99 per cent can no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 per cent. It must be ended. But let’s get this straight. We need to go all out, if that dream is to be realised. And that’s the only way to keep the 1% in the crosswire. They are indeed outnumbered; but that 1% packs treachery and death. We just saw them hijacking the people’s struggle in Libya. They made that an excuse to bomb their way in and set up a regime, pliant enough to their satisfaction. Their skill at the ‘non-violent, democratic’ way is on display in Tunisia and Egypt. A Ben Ali is replaced with a Hamadi Jebali, a Mubarak with a Tantawi – and it’s business as usual for the 1%.
They are also adept at promoting protest, as a sort of safety valve and distraction – like they are trying in India. Anna Hazare gets media prime time; people’s anger against corruption is diffused. Meanwhile they step up their War on the People, unleash the army and US supplied drones, and go all-out against the on-going armed revolution of the dispossessed, the people’s war led by the Maoists. Oh yes, this 1% will do anything to hang on to power.
So we need to go to the roots. Dig them out. Demolish the power protecting it. Turn over the soil for the new to shoot up. That’s the only way to end the human-chewing, environment-destroying greed of capitalism, of the worldwide imperialist system. We need to end distinctions of class, caste, gender, race and ethnicity. We need to tear out the economic and social relations on which they rest. We need a thorough cleaning out of all the rotten ideas that go with them. And when you get down to it, that’s the communism we are talking about, a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of life – for us and this globe.
Revolution, all the way!
Capitalism is a dead-end! There’s a future in communism!
November 2, 2011
A decisive Struggle must be waged for the Formation of a New International Communist (M L M ) Organization (Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan)
The Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan is strongly desirous of the international reorganization of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations throughout the world. This international organization can—and should—include all the parties and organizations that were members of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and also parties and organizations that were out of RIM. From the political and ideological perspective this international organization should be based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and on the summation of the positive and negative experiences of RIM and other Maoist parties and organizations in the past three decades.
1.Marxism-Leninism-Maoism—and only Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and nothing less and nothing more than that—in the present situation is the ideological weapon of the international communist movement. (By nothing less we mean "post MLM" "Marxism" or "Marxism-Leninism"; by nothing more we mean the formulations that have been added like "thought" or "path" or "new-synthesis".) In other words, a genuine international communist movement can only be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement, which includes all Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations of different countries of the world. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism can, and must, develop; however, at this present juncture the international communist movement as whole is not in the position to have made such a leap forward. We cannot reach that stage with spurious, reckless and premature pretentious assertions that would only lead toward deviation and damage the international communist movement.
According to the experience of RIM's struggle in the past three decades, until RIM's activities was based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, it reached important theoretical and practical contributions, that are to be cherished and are worthy of protection, and that should also be further developed. However, the premature proclamations produced by the labels of "thought," "path" and "synthesis" not only lead certain parties away from the path of peoples war, revolution, and revolutionary struggles at different degrees, but also towards confusion and ideological and political disorientation; this has resulted in the current organizational fragmentation and paralysis of the entire Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. Without a clear stance against, and distancing from, this overt deviation, whose worst form is nothing but an apparent post-Marxism-Leninism-Maoism––and without conducting a serious struggle against it––we cannot lead the struggle for the formation of an international organization of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations towards a principled success and conclusion.
2. The international organization of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations of different countries of the world should be based on the Revolutionary internationalist comradery and solidarity of all the participants, including those smaller or bigger, stronger or weaker, older or newer. There should not be father or fathers, big brother or brothers, within its ranks. Our aspirations can only be achieved if the international movement will act as an international collective of the independent parties and organizations of different countries, each with equal rights, rather than as a global party. Thus, all the participants should have direct participation and contribution in the leadership of the international movement.
According to RIM's previous experiences, the existence of a permanent leadership committee was a positive point that provided continuity to the organizational existence and activities of RIM. This positive point not only deserves to be protected, but also strengthened and further expanded. however, From the very beginning of the formation of the Committee of RIM (CoRIM), and despite the stance of the Declaration of RIM against the centralizing tendency of Comintern, participants were formally divided into first class and second class members––that is, those who had the privilege of a permanent presence in CoRIM and those who were disenfranchised. Therefore, this committee never became a committee representing all members of RIM.
Even worse, in actual fact CoRIM, during the many years of its activities, was unconditionally under the hegemony of one particular party––even during the period when the collective decisions of RIM were in contradiction with the positions of that party. In such a situation the committee under the hegemony of that party, instead of implementing the collective decisions of RIM, directly or indirectly led to a direction that propagated the views and recently the " new synthesis " of that party at the level of whole movement. In particular, it was the unsolvable contradiction that finally led towards the decimation of the CoRIM. It should also be acknowledged, unfortunately, that the organizational principles and of rules RIM––with an unprincipled and incorrect stance based on separation of organizational principles and rules from ideological and political line––led RIM to the disregard and discount for the organizational principles and rules. In fact it was this organizational problem that paved the ground for the aforementioned party's unconditional hegemony within leading committee of RIM.
3. The most principled and appropriate international communist organization is a new International and we should strive for its formation. At the same time, however, we should acknowledge that in the current situation the immediate formation of a fully formed International is not immediately possible: we can only form an international organization at a lower level, fostering and developing it towards a new International.
According to the past experience of RIM, despite the fact that the strategic orientation of the struggle for the formation of a new international was theoretically accepted, in practical terms it was not given enough attention. In recent years, with the dominance of the post-Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in CoRIM, this goal has been forgotten as a whole.
In this current situation the new international communist (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) organization, towards the formation of which we are struggling, can and should benefit from the formation and struggles of RIM. Thus, this international organization should be more advanced, ideologically and politically, and organizationally more extensive.
4. Recently, the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan held a broad party seminar to provide a summation and analysis of the experiences of the struggles of RIM, and will soon publish its results, a humble theoretical contribution as part of a broad international summation. In the final analysis, the formation of a new international organization of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations throughout the world requires reaching a consensus on the fundamental points of a general summation of the experiences of the struggles of RIM and other Maoist forces. Carrying out a general debate and discussion amongst Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations for reaching such a consensus is necessary. In the process of forming and carring forward coordinations, competitions and bilateral, regional and transregional alliances in principle, this process of debate and discussion should continue during a reasonable and possible time amongst the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations for the purpose of the formation of a new international organization.
Long Live Proletarian Internationalism!
Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan
jaddi 1389 ( January 2011 )
Saturday, November 5, 2011
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